12.31.2010

The end of a year is the perfect time to reflect and regroup, recalling the best ideas, tools, and strategies of the year in order to make use of them in the future. Looking over my last year, I have compiled some lists of the things I have found to make my life as an educator simple. As we approach the new year, I will be sharing this series of High Fives.

When you work with children, you know that having a plan B is just as important as plan A. Many beautifully planned activities have to be suddenly abandoned due to unexpected technical difficulties, unpredictable student disinterest, and other impossible-to-expect obstacles. The last thing an educator wants is to have a room full of bored students. As has been said for centuries, idle hands are the devil's workshop. When things go wrong, and the little hands in front of me are beginning to look for mischief, I pull out one of these no-fail, no-prep-required tools. Then, while students are occupied, I can focus (some of) my attention on writing passes to the nurse, restarting computers, or otherwise handling whatever excitement has come up.

1. Shortcuts by Jeff Harris

My very first post on this blog in 2008 featured Jeff Harris' weekly learning comics called Shortcuts. Harris' cool activity pages are published each week in lots of newspapers around the country. Cut these out and laminate them for easy-as-pie independent learning. Wet-erase markers (such as Vis-a-Vis) seem to work best for us. Just a spritz of water and a paper towel leave these ready to go for next time. To extend this activity, check out the Shortcuts Teaching Guides page which includes ideas for turning the comics into a full-fledged lesson. This page also lists the topics that will be featured over the next few months, meaning you can plan ahead to include a Shortcut in a future lesson.

2. Sesamestreet.org

The Videos page on Sesame Street's website has 1000 segments from Sesame Street episodes going back decades. If you're like me, you can recall parts of your own favorite episodes from childhood, and you are likely to find those classic clips. This fall, I was teaching students about community heroes, and I remembered the "People in Your Neighborhood" song. Turns out the site has several of these segments featuring all kinds of helpers like a grocer, a lifeguard and a dentist. But, the best part of this tool is that once you get it started, it doesn't require any other adult attention. For example, if you type Kwanzaa into the Search Videos box, many related videos will appear as results. Once you press play on the first video, it will play through. When it ends, the next video from the search results will begin and so on. Once the search results are exhausted, other clips will play. This can mean several minutes of problem-solving time available for the grown-up.

3. Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles help students develop problem solving, logical thinking, and spatial relation skills. They also help with students' hand-eye coordination, perseverance, and cooperation (when shared). But the best thing about puzzles when you're in a planning pinch, is that they are ready to go. I pick up puzzles, as well as the next two items in this High Five list, at dollar stores and in Target's Dollar Spot. If you help students build a habit of checking their area for stray pieces at the end of each playtime, these $1 puzzles will last through many, many uses.

4. Flash Cards

Flash cards often get a bad reputation. However, I have had great success letting students have free play time with the colorful flashcard sets you can buy at Target and the dollar stores. My 5th grade students loved to challenge each other using Solar System or World Landmarks sets (both from Target). Students love to stack up all the cards they answered correctly and marvel at their own success. In no time, learners will memorize tons of facts of the sort that are frequently featured on standardized tests. I always let students make up their own rules for flash card play. This keeps the activity pretty stress-free and creates time for me to handle other dilemmas.

5. Dry-Erase Activity Mats

Target's Dollar Spot also frequently has these dry-erase activity mats that come with their own marker and eraser. Each page is two-sided and focuses on a specific topic. I have used these for Math, Science, Social Studies and Foreign Language reinforcement. Like the activities above, these mats are totally independent and require basically no preparation. If you lose the little foam eraser or the little marker, students can use dry-erase markers and paper towels to continue playing and learning.

12.19.2010

With just a few days between here and Christmas, there is a shared mood of anticipation. Kids and adults alike are distracted from daily routines by thoughts of travel, food, family, and gifts. When an exciting event is just around the corner, countdown calendars can be a fun way to mark time until the main attraction.

Since I was in school, I've enjoyed marking the corners of my calendar pages with little numbers and then crossing them out each day as winter, spring, and summer breaks approached. Turn this practice into a fun tradition by making a countdown calendar you can use and reuse.

This coloring calendar from Alphamom is customizable and simple. There are two free templates available to print and make your own. One has 24 windows, and the other has eight. These templates are perfect for Christmas and Hanukkah, but they could also be customized for any other event: the twenty four days before a birthday; the last eight days before school starts.

d.Sharp has an envelope calendar idea with free printable numbers. The tutorial suggests filling the envelopes with small treats or activity ideas. This system could easily be customized for various holidays and events by changing the amount of envelopes and the treats and activities inside.

The advent garland tutorial recommends filling each pocket with an activity idea like making hot chocolate or driving around to look at lights.

Oh Happy Day has a long list of fun ideas for a holiday activity calendar. It might also be fun to let students make up their own ideas for the activity cards, leaving just the order of events as a surprise.

12.09.2010

Baby it's cold outside, so while you're cozy indoors, scurry over to Wild Olive to get this fantastic set of holiday printables along with another nativity set. Both bunches of holiday characters would make perfect decorations, but they can also be used as bookmarks. Just print and cut to have festive placeholders for students' books. Also, as Mollie suggests, these would make whiz-bang puppets when glued to popsicle sticks. Students could write and act out stories for the Christmas characters.